hi! i joined the forums recently hoping for some good feedback on my works from you users. from what ive seen around here, you guys give good advice.

i doodled most of my childhood up until highschool. my senior year is when i actually decided to try and improve and ive been working on it ever since. despite my experience i have very little schooling in art so there are a lot of techniques i have yet to learn.

i actually feel kinda uneasy about displaying my work here because of the genres of art that are my main interest, which is anime and anthropomorphic (furry art). the general attitude towards them that ive gathered from my experiences on the net is that theyre not particularly respectable genres. i guess its kinda natural that i went that route seeing as my initial inspiration for drawing were the sonic the hedgehog games. but im completely open to new ideas and wanna try my hand at other types of art while continuing drawing what i love in the hopes of mixing styles into something spectacular. basically i have something to prove.

anyways, im making a sketchbook here to show some sketches and studies and hopefully some actual finished works (which is rare for me).

thanks so much for visiting my thread!
~lesti

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/2584/thelegendwillneverdiesk6.jpg

lestikitty

06-06-2008, 08:32 PM

here are some gestures i sketched today trying to work on keeping loose while drawing. i always end up going into details far to soon in the sketching process. im not very good at it. it seems that i just cant help but make my sketches scratchy. right now im just trying to get the feel of this technique and so im starting off pretty simple and will try to slip in more details as i get used to it.

i think drawing should be fun even if it is for studies, so my work looks really playful, i think. i added the refs so that it would be easier to make sense of these scribbles lol.

http://img379.imageshack.us/img379/6210/gesturestudy1km4.jpg

found most of the refs at http://lockstock.deviantart.com . she has tons of nice photos there if anybody needs some refs. and if anybody knows of where to find more, please let me know cuz it was kinda hard just to find those ones right there.

lestikitty

06-07-2008, 04:35 AM

i took on Satzer71's Daily Speedpainting (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=31&t=635826) today and learned a little something interesting. i decided to not go past the 20 min mark for it so i could see what i could do in 20 min. considering it was my first time doing a timed speed paint, not knowing how fast i worked, it came out okay but looking at that hatching i did to try and blend...i was not pleased. i worked 20 mins more on it trying a different blending method and sure enough i had a better time of it.

the technique: rather than hatching i changed my strokes to go along with the gradient flow. when using a dark color at a low opacity i would repeatedly pull my strokes from light areas to dark shortening the length of my stoke after each repeat. i would pull the opposite way (dark to light) when using a light color.

that technique was a problem for me to use on those shadows/highlights around the neck muscels but on the cheekbones it worked great. i guess it only works for areas where the change from light to dark is gradual.

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/4141/spex0606progressan3.jpg

i think it was good that i stopped after 20 mins so i could look at my technique and analyze it. i probably wouldve never noticed if i had contiued working over the time limit. ill have to make a note of that too--stopping and looking at my progess and looking for different better coloring methods.

lestikitty

06-07-2008, 07:49 PM

i took part in this challenge trying to make sure i produce some kind of work every day. for a while now i havent been drawing on a regular basis so im taking part in some random things to make sure im active art wise.

http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/364/1451warwithselfjz4.jpg

i know i probably wont finish this but still id like to have some c&c on it or anything else in my thread so that can have some pointers for future works. im really working hard to try and improve, i could use any kind of help i can get, please.

staticpen

06-09-2008, 03:38 AM

Hey! Glad to finally see you posting! You've got a pretty good start to your sketchbook here. I must say, Sonic is as good a reason as any to get going in drawing, hahaha. You showed a pretty good handle of light and form in that one. I also think your gesture sketches are on the right track. Feeling loose with your lines does wonders for figure sketches (preventing those sketchy lines you mentioned). ;)

So anyway, a couple things I guess. I'm no expert by any stretch, but I know a couple things that might be of help. About your 20 minute study. Pretty good! ;) But yeah, check out the color you used to shade the underside of her jaw and compare it with the band around her neck - you used the same color. Now check the jaw and band in the photo. Way different colors, huh? Also keep in mind your negative space. You wouldn't think to see it this way, but try looking at the photo as if the background is the dominant shape and the lady is the background. Seeing that way from time to time will keep your empty spaces in check, such as the gap between her jaw and shoulder.
But yeah, I'm just nitpicking here. You really came out with a pretty good image for 20 minutes! ;)

ack! my communication skills are very lacking, i wasnt clear: that first painted imaged i took 20 mins on and then i worked 20 more mins on it to get that last image, so the last image took 40 mins total. no way i could do anything like that in 20 mins! i need to clear that up *fixes*.

i used your tip on negative space in this next speed paint ( i cant believe i missed that huge gap between her jaw and shoulder) and ill work on my colors. thats definitely one of my major weak points i want to work on. and thank you for the link!

well heres what i worked on today:

started off with some more gestures. i didnt have time to find any photo references so i tried doing some from imagination which is completely different and more difficult to do than working from refs hence all the scratchy sketches >_< aiy.

http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/3244/gesturestudy2yu3.jpg

i dont do full body drawings all that often to begin with and much prefer doing faces and expressions. i found that drawing those faces on the bodies was distratcting me from focusing on the poses and having a clear image of them in my mind. once i directed my focus back to the poses, i forgot about adding the faces altogether haha.

moving along... another speed paint referenced from Satzer71's Daily Speedpainting thread again. ive stopped at 20 mins but i do plan on working on it some more after getting a good look at my progress.

http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/9610/dspex0529wrefib3.jpg

its freaky how i notice all this stuff while im drawing or painting but in the middle of working on this i realized it was harder to do than that first one. i suppose its cuz of the wider range of colors and i knew before hand that colors are one of my many major weakpoints. i was really surprised at how much i accomplished in the first 20 mins of my last speed paint simply because of the colors. i thought for sure they would slow me down greatly. my bit of success with that last one made me start this one off overconfidently. even with the trouble i was having i tried not to rush like i did on the last one. as a result i think my strokes in this one feel looser. not only that but i noticed how much pressure i was putting on my pen, so i slacked up on that saving me a lot of time that i would typically use switching between opacities and it made my strokes have a more natural feel in my opinion. despite not having a good amount of this done like last time, im feeling more pleased with this first 20 min attempt than i am with my other 20 min attmept.

lestikitty

06-09-2008, 07:16 AM

i just started this thread and now i have to go and leave it for a couple months. i think its a couple months... well for a good while then, since im not sure how long.

my dad showed up out of the blue today talking about taking me back with him and he lives a few states away. i have to go, because after spending some time there with him were going across a few more states to see his dad which i definitely dont want to miss that since he recently became my only living grandparent and i havent seen him in years.

well, im not sure what im going to do to keep up my progress... i dont think doing sketches will be sufficient enough. any ideas?

lestikitty

06-09-2008, 09:11 AM

http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/4649/dspex05292rb3.jpg

didnt keep track of how much time i worked more on it.

apparently my brush strokes felt different cuz i was using the airbrush first time around and not the paintbrush XD; and i had to fix alot of stuff cuz i started off with no sketch (cuz i was rushing). also i probably shouldve waited till i got some of the shirt done first before starting on the hair.

oiy.

staticpen

06-09-2008, 05:25 PM

Hey, nice sketches! And yeah, your new portrait is looking pretty good. Staying loose and using the largest brush possible are good habits to have. ;)

But uh, what's wrong with updating with mostly just sketches? I'd like to see them. I'm not even a huge fan of really polished, finished pieces. Sketches are my favorite. :cool:

lestikitty

06-11-2008, 04:57 AM

sorry i missed replying yesterday static. glad you like my work ^_^

i dont mind updating with sketches, i just want to practice my digital painting too. i dont use photoshop enough, i dont color enough, i dont draw full bodies enough, i dont do alot of things regularly like i should and so im really weak in all these areas. im starting to get the feeling for digital painting that i dont want to lose from not using my tablet for a few months. ive asked my mom about borrowing the laptop, tho, since it has opencanvas 1.1 and the driver for my tablet and my dad has a computer with an internet connection so i can still find some good refs. my grandad probably wont have a computer at all so i still have to come up with a plan for that.

i wont be able to update with any art at all when i go (which is tomorrow morning) cuz the laptop cant connect to the internet and i dont think my dad has a scanner. so this is my last post with an image for a long while.

my biggest concern with this whole trip is making sure i have material to work with for the whole few months. even if all i did was sketches, i would like to have refs to work with which once i head down to my grandad's i dont know how i will find any. i guess i was just hoping somebody could give me some suggestions on how i could do that.

well onto todays work...

my dad showing up like this has really thrown me off track. i didnt manage to produce any work yesterday at all and today, no time for sketches, just a speed paint.

i made sure not to let the timer rush me today and ended up taking much longer than i wanted to. by the time i finished airbrushing the background and making sure i had a good sketch first (unlike last time) the timer sounded for 20 min and i hadnt even thrown down one paint for the pirate! upsetting....

there were a few guidlines that i came up with while thinking about my work on that last portriat:

1. never forget the basics. i failed to do a sketch first last time and that gave me problems.

2. always use controlled strokes. typically when i start blocking in areas i throw paint on all crazy like. no-no. its a habit i need to get rid of completely cuz i know i probably do it somewhat as i add details.

3. do basic shapes first; do NOT go into details too soon. i cant help but do that. i guess im anxious to try and hurry up and make the picture have a more whole feeling. but thats a mistake i make almost everytime, particularly when it comes to faces.

i shouldve written these down or ran them through my head first before starting todays work. i remebered the first two while working on this one but forgot the third one obviously.

enough. ive taken too much time on this as it is and i still have to pack for tomorrow.

staticpen

06-12-2008, 06:15 PM

Well, for what it's worth, putting all that time into your background made it look pretty legit, haha. Really nice job on the shadows.

As for having references to use while you're away... no photo is as good a reference as life. Draw whatever you see. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Van Gogh, Bougeureau... they got pretty good without any photos to draw from, wouldn't you say? Besides, no photograph has yet captured the intricacies of light and shadow that the human eye sees every day. They say still say it in schools, and for good reason: The best reference is life.

All that computer talk, though, I dunno. You can always download tablet drivers for whatever computer you're using. Wacom.com if that's the brand you have. If you're ever stuck with a computer with an internet connection and no software to draw with, don't worry. I cut my tablet teeth on oekaki. Go to oekakicentral.com or any other oekaki website and just use their online shi-painter application. It's not quite photoshop, but you have layers, hard round brushes and air brushes, and those three things are all you really need anyway. Then just save your image to the computer and upload it for us here. :)

lestikitty

06-13-2008, 03:19 AM

i guess i could do some still life drawings...better than nothing. cuz i sure aint gonna go around asking people to model for me, too embarrassing >_<

yeah, youre right. i would prefer drawing people cuz i want to work on that but i dont need to sketch people to improve my sketching skills or paint portriats to learn painting techniques.

downloading the driver was a thought but i just dont feel comfortable installing stuff on my dads computer that hes not going to use and for the most part im not going to be around to use. plus i just have this thing about people i know irl seeing my art...i dont like it XD and i just know that hes going to make a big deal about it if i ask him if i can install the driver. "oh you draw on the computer? lemme see some pictures...", (calls his wife) "come see this...", (when visiting relatives) "hows sharmaine? oh shes good. spends her time drawing pictures of blue creatures..." no. please god no.

staticpen

06-14-2008, 04:29 PM

Aw, you gotta show your art to people.

But you can still draw people without having them model for you. Just draw them candidly. Go outside with a sketchbook and you'll find a lot of people sitting around on benches and standing by magazine stands or whatever. Draw whatever. Draw everything. Haha. Buildings, animals, people, what have you. It's all good.

lestikitty

09-17-2008, 07:18 PM

i was very lazy about getting back to this place after my vaykay and continuing my studies. i wanted to get back now so here i am.

i tried to continue while i was gone but adjusting to the surrounding really ruined my mood for drawing for most of the time i was gone. i got very little done but i did make a break thru. ive been trying to draw consistantly since. i havent been drawing or painting everyday but i have been drawing more than i have in a good long time and that feels good. and ive been trying to get into other things recently. composition and life drawing.

no time for pictures. must go.

lestikitty

09-19-2008, 03:30 AM

alright. im in a time crunch tonight so im putting up some of my sketches from the trip. i was rushing so the scan quality is really bad. also, i had been trying to avoid drawing what i normally draw when it came to stuff i was going to update to here with but, i dunno, i mustve felt like i was never going to show these sketches or something so i just went ahead and drew whatever i wanted *shrug*. its embarrassing but i wanted to keep the pages as true to original as possible.

these were the first few sketches i did while i was there:
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/2847/workfromga1lt5.jpg

this is the image where things clicked, so its important to me:
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/4568/workfromga2os1.jpg

and these are the images that came after my breakthru:
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/9905/workfromga3cs6.jpg

i have some digital work but i dont have time tonight to show it.

lestikitty

09-19-2008, 03:35 AM

my time this evening was consumed by all this reading on composition. i hate reading. particularly when its very long text. its the way i read it that makes it such a pain. i read to comprehend and that takes more work than just reading it to just read and not understand what im reading cuz thats just a waste of time imo.

i dont have models so i used a mirror and drew a few things in my view.

lestikitty

09-20-2008, 06:18 AM

well since ive documented the most important event for me while i was away, theres no need to try and show anything else from then. its just more work than what its worth and i need to focus on moving forward anyway.

life drawing is still very frustrating for me but im not going to give up. i really do want to get good at it. the painting is the exercise for Satzer71's Daily Speedpainting thread today. i took an hour on it but still i rushed horribly. and some sketches from today.

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/2913/lifedrawings2cc3.jpg

staticpen

09-20-2008, 02:15 PM

Ooh, great sketches. It looks like using life as a reference is really helping you improve quickly. Keep it up!

lestikitty

09-21-2008, 06:35 AM

thanks for the encouragement! :)

not much to show today, sadly. im trying to keep my eyes open for interesting things to draw but im still having a hard time finding anything of interest to draw.

for tonights work i used a pen and man did it scan beautifully!:
http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/327/lifedrawings3pi8.jpg

some notes about tonights experience:

todays sketches were revealing. first is the one of me at an overhead view (trying something different); i found that i have a hard time judging the position of edges and size of outlined shapes so now im trying to stick to simple strokes getting the gist of the edge shape but with more focus on where im drawing it. after that i was really desperate for something else to draw, so knowing i would never manage anything decent from it, i took the little plant off the kitchen table and drew that. it was way out of my league as i expected and i gave up trying to make the sketch look decent in the middle of drawing. by the drawing of the second plant i realized that i had been putting a good amount of my effort into making my sketches look artsy rather than focusing on what i was doing. this is why i like the sketch of the larger plant the most; its the most genuine of them cuz by this point i had thrown out the idea of making pretty pictures. i think the fact that it was an object that was way out of my league had a lot to do with that rerouting of effort, so now im interested in drawing more things of that nature. i also enjoyed drawing that one the most too. those last two sketches; the one with my feet, i switched back to my first state of mind and that frustrated me and i ended up throwing a fit and not putting any effort into it at all XD and that last one...well i was already frustrated so...

i dont know what else im gonna draw now. im not interesting in drawing anything else: not copying photos or drawing from my imagination. i only want to do life drawings! im seriously determined to get better at this.

that desire to try and make my drawings look nice is distracting. i gotta find some kinda way to suppress it.

TedNindo

09-21-2008, 10:27 AM

hey lestikitty,

I know exactly what you mean. And it is something really fundamental. I learned that rather late. I guess it is really important to get yourself away from the exeption that every thing you do every stroke has to look nice. It will distract you from experimenting from doing loose strokes and come up with new stuff.
I can tell you what helped me with this problem. When you draw things from life draw 2-3 poses in 3-5 minutes and then do something like 10 poses or things 30sec to 1 minute. If you try that you will not be able to care about creating pretty strokes. Try to be as loose as possible even try not to look at your drawing to much. In fact try some drawings without looking at the paper completely. Don't expect to be able to create masterpieces but try to enjoy the flow of your stokes.
Then try to take that back to your normal drawings.

I hope this will help you a bit.

lestikitty

09-24-2008, 02:55 AM

sorry about taking so long to get back to you ted. however i did try out your advice for my next set of drawings and it did better than suppress that urge but rid me of it completely! thanks so much for sharing that tip.

i was really able to focus on what i was doing and im glad about that, but if its not one thing its another. i did my drawings with my efforts going into being sure im looking at what im drawing and drawing what im looking at and nothing else. not even making sure im drawing my lines positioned correctly like i said i would work on. apparently i have to focus on my subject and on my lines at the same time--or switch my focus between them frequently or something. well, whatever it is, its giving me hell.

this page of some of my sketches should show what im talking about. these are the first few that i did:
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3994/lifedrawings4hx2.jpg

i have a hard enough time just trying to make those size/position judement calls alone. to have to try and focus on something else with it or even switch focus makes it worse >_<

on my last sketch i slowed down and took more time with my line placement. i figure it would help to get the hang of that first.

im concerned that maybe im being too analytical and just having all this trouble cuz im trying too hard. i think ill keep this up for a week and see how that goes.

staticpen

09-24-2008, 03:51 AM

That radio thing looks really good. It always helps me to draw room clutter whenever I'm feeling like I'm not doing well enough. It makes you slow down a bunch. You can't just scribble and make the impression of clutter. It just ends up looking like you messed up. It really takes a lot of patience and forces you to always be looking around at the relationships of the clutter vs. the environment. So I guess it's like a 1-2 punch. You have to be patient and focus carefully, but if you don't take a step back every once in a while you'll find out that your pile of clutter is way too big or small, way too far to the left or right, etc compared to the rest of the scene. So... I don't know how well I explained that, but I tried. Haha.
Good job. :thumbsup:

alicelefay

10-16-2008, 01:44 AM

I perfectly understand you!
I'm a newbie in life drawing, maybe cause I wanted to make "the nice draw" and I was not able to do it ... or maybe because I really never tried to life drawing and had no occasion to see how funny it is!!
I always painted from photoreferences, always trying to have the best drawing the best painting the best sketch....it was frustrating!
It's 2 days that i life draw and yes, I'm enjoying it!
They are not masterpiece and they are not clean and they are not perfect but....they are funny and they have a meaning to me! Maybe because all that observation brings some of your soul inside them...maybe because I paint people ( my mum ) that I actually LIVE.
The important thing is that we love what we are doing and that we want to continue on this road :)
Good luck with your art and...waiting to see more from you!

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